Suspicions are growing stronger that the Tsarnaev brothers were the culprits in a gruesome murder of three of their closest friends, two of them Jewish, on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The men had knife wounds on their bodies, had been dragged one by one into separate rooms and were “slaughtered,” according to local media description. They were found the following morning by Mess’s girlfriend, who reportedly ran screaming from the apartment. Their throats had been slit, their bodies sprinkled with marijuana, and $5,000 in cash lay untouched in the apartment.

There was no sign of a break-in to the apartment, meaning that the victims likely knew their killers. Money obviously was not the motive, since the killers left so much behind. It's unlikely that only one man could have subdued three victims, so it makes sense to think of killers, not a single killer. As for motive:

The murder date also corresponds to the period during which the FBI believes Tamerlan was becoming increasingly radicalized. Tamerlan became increasingly pious in his habits, including growing a beard and rejecting alcohol. In 2011, Russian authorities intercepted telephone and SMS conversations between Tamerlan and his mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who lives in Russia, that discussed jihad and Tamerlan’s willingness to die for Islam. Zubeidat had suggested Tamerlan go to fight against Israel in “Palestine,” but Tamerlan objected that he did not know Arabic.